State Rep. Dorothy B. Pelote, D-Savannah, delivered the Georgia House's daily devotional message Tuesday and told members she can prophesy and has contact with the dead.

''The last person who visited me was -- I don't know if I need to call her name,'' Pelote said from the Speaker's rostrum. ''Maybe I should not, because it's a controversial death now. She's missing. You know who I'm talking about. She has visited me. She has.''

Pelote did not mention Levy's name on the House floor, but confirmed later to The Macon Telegraph that her comments referred to the 24-year-old California woman who disappeared April 30.

Pelote, a former teacher elected to the House in 1992, told lawmakers her psychic experiences began after she nearly drowned as a child. She had a vision of a bright fireball in the sky and later began having visions of dead people, she said.

''And the older I get, the stronger it becomes,'' Pelote said.

Ministers normally deliver the devotionals, but House Speaker Tom Murphy agreed to allow lawmakers to give them during the Legislature's special redistricting session because of the difficulty of coordinating clergy schedules.

This article published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Thursday, September 6, 2001.